Criss Cross

Criss Cross is a 1949 American film noir crime film starring Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea, directed by Robert Siodmak and written by Daniel Fuchs based on Don Tracy's 1934 novel of the same name. This black-and-white film was shot partly on location in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. Miklós Rózsa scored the film's soundtrack. It was remade as The Underneath in 1995. Plot Steve Thompson returns to Los Angeles looking for his ex-wife Anna, eager to rekindle a new romance with her against all better judgment. He resumes his old job as a driver at an armored-truck company. Anna is now married to mobster Slim Dundee, but continues a clandestine affair with Thompson. To deflect any hint of their affair, Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery caper, only to have Dundee double cross him when the crime is pulled off. Wounded during the botched robbery, Thompson is recovering in a hospital and considered the hero who wounded the robbers. Dundee has sent a man to the hospital to bring Thompson to him, but Thompson bribes the man to drive him to Anna's hiding place, where they're to meet and start a new life with the stolen money. But seeing Thompson's wounded condition and fearing that Dundee will track them down, Anna shocks him with her "criss cross" by telling him that she will take the money and leave him behind. Thompson is trying to reason with Anna when Dundee arrives. He assumed Thompson would bribe the driver and followed them. He kills both Anna and Thompson, but as he turns to leave, sirens fill the air. Cast